Supermoon of Supermoons

a short story by Ernio Hernandez

“He’s a great guy, dad,” Vera assured her father as they sat looking out the window. “And even when he’s not, he tries.”

“As long as he is better to you than I was,” Ilon said, turning to his daughter.

“Dad… stop.”

“I appreciate him coming up to the North Pole to ask for my blessing. That’s a good sign.”

“He had to make a stop at Santa’s, so… two birds…”

Ilon let out a laugh that brought tears to his eyes. “You and your mother. You always make me laugh. It’s what I loved most about being with you both.” A weighted sigh. “I am happy you are here.”

Emalia walked Vera inside the airport as far as she could without a ticket herself. Her baby was 18 years old. A mix of utter happiness and sheer dismay bubbled up inside her again — the one she first felt when her daughter was accepted into an Ivy League school on the other side of the country.

“Let me know when you land,” she said.

“I will, mom. I’ll text you,” Vera told her.

“Text is fine. But promise you will video chat me maybe once a week. Please, indulge your mother. I need to see your face.”

“I will, mom,” Vera laughed. “I will video chat you with my face.”

Emalia smiled. She could take the subtle ribbing from the smart (smart-ass) young woman looking back at her. Anything to break the tension of having to watch her walk away and be apart for what could be years. She knew this day was coming and that this hug was going to be a long one.

“I am going to be an emotional wreck for a while; I am allowed. Let me have this.”

Vera laughed and hugged her mother with all her might. “I love you, mom.” She held her out and looked into her eyes, “This is going to be like lemon on a paper cut… and… I’m going to say it anyway. You may be an emotional wreck, you may be whatever this weird scared/doting/happy thing your face is doing right now, but I owe this all to you.”

Emalia’s eyes widened as much as they could and flooded just as fast. She began sobbing audibly as her daughter grabbed hold of her and hugged even harder.

“You let me have this, mom. All this.”

“I leave on furlough in three days,” Ilon said. “A friend got me a job at Bellows Station in Hawaii.” He paused. “Come with me.”

The young woman laying on his chest was taken aback. Her first thought was her nurse training, which she had only just begun, but…

“Hawaii?” Emalia whispered as she rolled over to see his face. It was lit up with a smile so wide. She hadn’t known his rugged jawline to bend that way in the few months she’d been familiar with it.

“Those weren’t the three words I was expecting tonight,” she said.

Ilon belly laughed so hard Emalia bounced from the reverberation. Which then made her laugh and almost fall off the small bed that held them both. He held her face in his palm and knew he never wanted to be without her. “I do. I love you.”

She was still catching her breath from laughing. “Say it again.”

He smiled and happily obliged. “I love you. I do.”

“That’s the preferred order, I believe. And… I love you too.” Swept up in the moment and the way he made her feel, she figured she would figure out the rest later. Before she knew it, they were repeating those words on Makua Beach with an officiant present.

Emalia and Ilon lay beside each other gazing at the sky on their wedding night. Neither had seen such a blanket of stars as far as the eye could see. It was hard to tell which gleamed brighter: the array of constellations or the twinkle in their eyes.

Just outside Arrivals, Vera held a sign that read: D. ADDY — mostly as a joke, but in small part because it had been more than five years since she’d last seen him.

There, holding a small valise and garment bag, her father met her with a smile that clenched his jaw. The hug was unexpected but long and welcome.

Ilon pulled back from the embrace to get a better look at his daughter, now a full-fledged woman. He stared at her with such intent.

“Hi, dad!” she said, breaking the near-awkwardness.

“Vee, I just… hi, baby. How are you?”

“I’m in the red zone up at Departures, and Nana’s alone at home with the dog that she won’t stop telling me she’s allergic to, so let’s hit the road.”

“Sure,” he said, collecting his luggage. “Thank you for handling all this and for picking me up. I really could have just taken a cab.”

“No problem, I wanted to see you. And I’m practicing my airport pickups for when I flunk out of med school and become a folksy cab driver.”

Ilon followed his daughter, taking in her sudden adulthood. He marveled at how much she resembled her mother at this age, but he bit his tongue not to mention it.

“Seatbelt. How’s Alaska?”

“Well. It’s going well. I’m near some old friends in Healy now. It’s quiet, a little old, but so am I.”

The conversation was sparse and what of it was light. When she pulled into the driveway he hadn’t seen in more than a decade, she reached for the keys from the ignition and Ilon put his hand on hers.

“What’s up?” Vera asked.

Ilon looked at Vera and said, “Let’s just sit for a minute.”

“Sure.” She took her hand off the keys and placed them on her lap. Looking out the windshield at her mom’s home, she let out a deep sigh. Then, as if the floodgates were opened, she began to weep for the first time since being back home.

“Your mom loved you, Vera. More than anything; more than me, more than even herself. And you always made her proud. She’ll always be with you.”

Vera continued to cry like she never had before. Ilon wrapped his arm around her — like he did when she was a child—and she buried her head into his chest.”

“It’s okay, baby. You let it out.”

Twelve days on Denali and the weather was working in favor of the climbing expedition. The team had spent the day settling in at high camp—some 17,200 feet up the highest peak in North America.

“Guess all that military training doesn’t fade with age, huh?” Faruk said to Ilon just outside their tents.

“Your father and I trained hundreds of men in our day. I don’t think a quarter of them would attempt this. This would make one helluva boot camp.”

“Glad to have you along with us, Ilon. My dad would’ve been proud to see his old buddy keeping step with us wild youngsters.”

“You’re a good kid. Nothing like your dad.”

Faruk laughed. “Rest well, sir. Weather permitting, we head for the summit tomorrow.”

Ilon nodded and closed his tent. He sat quietly as the rest of the team hit the sack. When he was certain they had all gone to sleep, he slid out of his tent and headed up toward the summit.

The wind whipped harder at night and without daylight, the terrain seemed all the more dangerous. Almost two weeks on the snow and ice had taken its toll on Ilon. Still, he soldiered on.

Finally reaching the summit, he collapsed under his own weight. It was several minutes before he even caught his breath.

Rising to his feet, he looked down the mountain. Back toward the home he bought after Emalia left him. The view he had looked at so many times in reverse. Finally, it was clear why.

Turning back toward the wide expanse of the night sky almost made him lose his balance. The grandeur of it. For each light in the small towns behind him, there were hundreds of stars looking down over him. And there, hovering heavily over his head, loomed the most Supermoon of Supermoons.

This would be the closest the two celestial bodies would ever be in his lifetime. He felt certain he wouldn’t be around for the next, some 20 years away. Staring up as gravity weighed down his aged body like an old anchor, he felt peace. At long last, he was ready to let go.

Ilon took his last terrestrial breath and jumped off the Earth into the sky.

If you enjoyed this, you may like:

Me and My Moon Man: a young woman and her father across space and time

Blackout: a man wakes up in the middle of the night in the middle of the road

Made My Heart Race: two sides of the same encounter on the road